


five times tony stark talks about peter parker's legacy

by bstarship



Series: 5+1 things [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark Friendship (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker Misses Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Loves Peter Parker, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, isn’t it ironic, tony stark is bad at monopoly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26253178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bstarship/pseuds/bstarship
Summary: And the one time Peter talks about Tony's.orTony is a big softie who loves his daughter a whole heckin' lot.
Relationships: Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: 5+1 things [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906720
Comments: 8
Kudos: 114





	five times tony stark talks about peter parker's legacy

**Author's Note:**

> <3 (i know i keep writing a lot of 5+1 things i'm sorry i promise i'll write an actual plot soon lol)

**I.**

“I was gonna suggest Yahtzee, but I see I’m outnumbered.”

“Mo’poly more funner.”

“ _More funner?_ I think your mom is having a heart attack.”

“I will check,” Morgan said, leaping up from her spot on the floor. She padded over to Pepper, who was calmly sitting on a chair with a Country Gardens magazine, and placed a hand over her chest. “Nope. No heart attack. Patient is healthy.”

Tony cracked a grin. His knees ached from sitting on the floor with his daughter, but it was one of the sacrifices he signed off on the day she was born. “What about me, Doc? How’s my heart?”

Pepper was holding back a smile from up on her chair. Even though she had the magazine open, she watched the scene unfold below her feet.

Meanwhile, Morgan leaped on her father’s chest and slapped her hand down against his sternum. She was hardly there long enough to feel a pulse. “Uh oh,” she said with a pout and her infamous furrowed brow.

“Uh oh?” he said. “What’s the problem, Doc?”

She shook her head. “Not healthy.”

Tony flattened his lips, grimacing slightly as he shrugged. “Well, that’s the nicest way anyone has ever put it. You sure you wanna play Monopoly? After what happened the last time you were the banker?”

Morgan glared at him through a smile. The last game of Monopoly had ended in a breakdown, and thousands of dollars in play cash fluttered around the room, falling in drink cups and sliding under furniture. The three-year-old shared his intellect, and while she was good at the ages-eight-and-up board game, she was still a toddler. She still had her temper tantrums and spontaneous meltdowns over not getting the property she wanted.

After setting the board up, Morgan’s voice was shrill as she shrieked, “I call the doggie!” The game commenced before her sugar high took a dip.

Tony, in his most typical fashion, went to choose the race car game piece. But Morgan handed it over to Pepper before he could reach it, so he was left with the thimble.

Within the first few minutes, Morgan already had claimed Kentucky Avenue, and Pepper had her eyes on Virginia Avenue to no surprise. Meanwhile, Tony still lacked funds. His dice rolls continued to come up short. By the time he was able to make it around the board, he landed himself in jail.

“This game is rigged,” he muttered. “Roll for me, would ya, Momo? You’ve got the lucky touch. But if you don’t roll doubles, I’m gonna eat all of your pudding cups.”

She gleefully leaned across the coffee table, knees hitting the wood while Tony winced at the sound. Kids were indestructible, yet they still cried over every little thing. Morgan shook the dice in her closed hands and released them up in the air. One found a home beneath the couch while the other hit off of Tony’s head. The number on that die was _six_.

“Uh oh spaghettio,” Morgan said before bounding toward the floor to fetch the other die.

Tony laughed at the choice of words, and without thinking, whispered, “ _God_ , Pete used to say that all the time.” And then he was left blinking in surprise, eyes wide as a familiar glance from Pepper met his gaze.

He thought the remark would be brushed beneath the rug like all of the other ones in the past. He never openly spoke about those things—the small things that ran through his mind whenever something reminded him of Peter. Tony was lucky that he hadn’t lost everything all those years ago, but he lost someone who continued to occupy his thoughts without warning. It was the little things that caused him to spiral.

Morgan shuffled out from under the couch, die in hand as she squealed, “it’s a six!”

Tony, in hopes the game would carry on like normal and without a change in his breathing, happily exited the jail space. Morgan’s turn followed.

The next few rounds passed with ease. While his daughter managed to win every time, she still had questions—as any three-year-old would—like, _“what’s income tax?”_ and _“what’s a celery?”._ It took him two minutes to realize that she meant salary. But the one question he hadn’t hoped for came once she conquered Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Who’s Pete?” she asked. “Is he a friend like Uncle Rhodey?”

Tony’s jaw clenched, and he kept his eyes low as he moved his thimble game piece onto Baltic Avenue. “No, uh—” He cleared his throat. Meanwhile, Pepper stared at him, awaiting his answer. But the truth was, he had no answer. He had no idea what to say. “Y’know, that character from those cartoons ya watch. Who’s the guy? Silly Pete?”

Morgan giggled and shook her head. “ _You_ silly.”

“Me silly?” Tony placed a hand on his chest with a gasp. “How dare you—after all that I’ve done for you? I’m shocked, Morgan H. Stark. I expected more from you.”

She continued to giggle, rolling the dice between her small fingers as she bit back her smile. Watching her—seeing her so happy and at ease—caused a knot in Tony’s stomach to grow. She was brought into a world that everyone else was still adjusting to. She would never know the catastrophic event nor the people it took from their lives. She would never know why her father barely spoke of what he lost. Tony realized, as the pit in his stomach only grew, that he owed it to her to tell her the truth.

“Actually—” he began, expression taut, so he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Pete is—well, Pete was—”

Pepper watched him from her chair. Her eyebrows furrowed tightly, lips dipping into a frown while her eyes screamed _you don’t have to do this_. But he did. So, he took a deep breath and continued.

“I guess you could say he was my kid before you, Momo,” he said sadly. He smiled at his daughter despite the anxiety rising in his chest. It was quick to climb in his throat.

Morgan cocked her head to the side and raised a brow. “Your kid?”

“Yeah, well. Kinda.”

“Where’s he now?”

The question made the room spin. Tony, gripping the edge of the coffee table with all his might, could only say, “He’s not around anymore, kiddo.”

Morgan twisted her lips. “I wan’ed to meet him. I like his name.”

Through the narrowing vignette, Tony chuckled and pushed the feelings away. It was game night. He was happy and at home with his family. His daughter’s birthday was coming up within the next few months, and he had nothing else to worry about—except the dread of watching her go off to school in a matter of years.

“Eh, the name is _okay_ ,” Tony said. “Dorky. He was a nerd. But the name _Tony_ , on the other hand—”

“Will he come back?”

Tony’s smile fell. When he stared down at his hands, he noticed they were shaking. Pepper’s eyes still held so much that she didn’t want to say. After a moment, Tony smiled once again at his daughter. “I sure hope so, Squirt. Now move your piece so we can finish up and have ice cream.”

**II.**

Tony had his mail tucked beneath his arm. In the other hand, he held a warm mug of coffee, fresh from the pot while the scent of it infiltrated his senses. The world outside was quiet as snow fluttered to the ground around him. It was the first snowfall of the year. These days, it was hard not to be happy. But _happy_ was such a strong word, so he settled on contentment and made each day with his family as special as the last.

When he re-entered his home, the coffee scent still lingered in his nose. Pepper stood at the kitchen counter as she made herself a cup with a splash of creamer. He was sure Morgan was around here somewhere.

“How many bills?” Pepper asked him, curling her fingers around the mug with a sigh. “You can throw away anything that’s from the government.”

Tony cracked a smile and slapped down the handful of envelopes. “Haven’t checked. Don’t wanna. I was thinking that we could just completely go off the grid. Even more so than we already are. Just cos’ I’m bored and I hate getting the mail every day.”

“We’d still have to pay bills.”

“Not if I just do everything myself.”

“You already do everything yourself and we _still_ have bills.”

Tony huffed as he shuffled through the mail. “Whatever. I’m just saying, it might be good for us to—”

His words were stuck in his throat, jaw clenching at the sight of the mailing address just under his gaze. For a moment, Tony’s brain had entirely emptied. _United States Census Bureau_ stopped his heart.

“What is it?” Pepper asked with her lips to her mug.

“It’s not—uh—” Tony furrowed his brows. “The census was—it’s not this year; right?”

“No. It was years ago.”

He didn’t say another word as he broke the seal, revealing a few forms, a letter, and what looked like to be an application of sorts. He was only a few sentences into the letter when his trembling hand fell back down onto the counter.

“Jesus,” he said, blinking up toward the ceiling. “They’re asking for the names of those who vanished.” His blood suddenly ran cold, limbs falling numb as he thought back a few years to that day. He thought back to floating in space—to accepting death—and how much he had lived since. He thought about the many people who would never live again.

His jaw never unclenched once he continued to read the letter. The anger he felt turned the world red.

“Ah, of course,” he said aloud. “They’re gonna put a memorial in every city all across the world. Every country is doing it apparently. Good fuckin’ riddance.”

Pepper raised a brow at that. “That’s… late coming. Why did it come to us?”

Tony shrugged and slid the letter toward his wife. He didn’t know where his emotions were. He didn’t know if his anger was at the Bureau or himself. Years later, and he never stopped blaming himself.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “So, everyone’s getting it.”

“Yep. Cos’ almost everyone lost someone.”

When Pepper frowned, Tony could see the thoughts cumulating in her brain. There were words she wouldn’t say for his sake. But sometimes she needed to be the one to say them.

“So, I guess we can just toss it,” he said. “It’s from the government, and we didn’t—”

“Tony.”

He looked up at her, and his façade was torn right through. He shook his head a few times as he set his hands on his hips. The skin beneath his eyes ached, and his brain spun. If he kept eye contact, he didn’t know if he could hold his feelings in much longer. “It shouldn’t be me,” he said. “I don’t think I should be the one to do it.”

“Who else would it be?” she asked. “Happy?”

Tony’s hands were still shaking. “They weren’t _family_ , Pep. The census asks for family members so their numbers aren’t skewed, so I don’t—”

“There is no one else,” Pepper said. “They had no one else. All they had was you.”

The thought made his stomach hurt, and while he knew she was telling the truth, he refused to acknowledge it. He didn’t want to—that only made the guilt worse.

“They weren’t family,” Tony repeated.

Pepper let out a sigh and lowered her head. “As far as I’m concerned, Tony, one of them was,” she said. “One of them is in a frame up on our mantle. On a shelf beside the sink. Somewhere in your workshop, I’m assuming. One of them handmade you an Iron Man action figure for your birthday. One of them has your class ring—which, to this day, I still can’t believe you allowed.”

“He wanted to go to MIT. I thought it would be neat.”

“Sure,” Pepper said, chuckling. “He’s not family.”

Tony stared down at the pile of papers—at the letter and the application—and rapped the counter with his knuckles. The idea of writing May and Peter’s names under a deceased column caused his vision to tunnel.

“He deserves more than this,” Tony muttered to himself. “More than a name on a memorial. It feels—it feels wrong to even let them see his name. To carve that shit into stone. Why’d it take them this goddamn long, huh? Why do they think it’s a good idea to open up old wounds?”

“I understand why you feel this way,” Pepper began, walking around the counter to rest a hand on his shoulder, “but it has to come from you. We can celebrate Peter’s life all that we want, but you know it’s never going to be enough. You have to be the one to send in their names. He deserves that.”

Tony shared a weak smile and set his hand on top of hers. “I’m gonna do more, obviously,” he said. “Cos’ he’s more than a name. They both are.”

Pepper pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You’ll figure something out. I know you will. Let me get you a pen.”

**III.**

“Are you gonna let me play with you or am I still in timeout?”

“Timeout,” said his daughter without a glance. She was hidden behind a plastic mansion, towering a few inches above her frame while Tony sat on the floor in front of it. She had placed him in timeout for calling her _‘pipsqueak’_. “And you’re banned.”

“I’m _banned_?” Tony asked, an amused smile twitching on his lips. “What am I banned from?”

“Playing dolls with me.”

He placed a hand to his chest as she peaked her head out from behind the mansion. “I’m hurt, I really am,” he said. “How long must this banishment last?”

“Um—” Morgan twisted her lips, and after a few seconds, she pushed a Thor action figure in his direction. “Til now.”

Tony clapped his hands together before moving around the playset. “All right. Do I get to be myself, though? Thor is, uh—weird lookin’.” And it was true—the doll, that was. It had gone through the wash a handful of times. His eyebrows were nonexistent.

“No, cos’ I’m Iron Man,” Morgan said.

“Oh, you’re Iron Man now, huh?”

“Uh-huh.”

Tony caught a glimpse at the action figure in her hands, and his smile quickly fell. It wasn’t the action figure she had practically begged him for at Target. It was the one Peter had made him so many years back—the one that was supposed to be in his office, too high for his daughter to reach. But it was there in her hands, and Tony’s heart started to hurt.

“Where’d you get that, pumpkin?” he asked slowly. He was attempting not to remember the day Peter had gifted it to him.

“Jus’ found it,” she said. “Found this, too.”

The next thing in her hands was a small insignia, a little black spider drone that Tony hadn’t seen in ages. Any prototypes he had created for Peter had been shoved away in drawers or cabinets, not to be touched until the memories were no longer as fresh in Tony’s mind. He should have known better than to underestimate his daughter’s abilities.

“Its name is Mis’er Spidey,” Morgan continued. “It’s gonna _o-fish-e-ate_ the wedding.”

“Whose wedding?”

“Iron Man and T’or.”

Tony chuckled, but his heart was lodged into his throat. “Me and Thor,” he said. “I can totally see it.” Meanwhile, there was a prickle beneath his eyes. A heavy sensation all because of the knick-knacks that reminded him of a kid he once knew.

But the worst part of all wasn’t the plain memory of Peter. Memories were fond these days—he looked back with a smile. Yet suddenly, in this moment with his daughter, Tony realized that her hands were full of those memories. Peter and Morgan would never know each other, and that was why Tony had started to cry. Although he always knew it to be true, he never thought about it long enough to hurt.

And Tony hadn’t thought about Peter in a while nonetheless.

“Daddy?” Morgan asked, quirking an infamous brow. “You can be Iron Man. I’m sorry.”

“No, no—” Tony shook his head and tried to laugh it off, but his eyes welled with warmth. If he blinked to correct his vision, the tears would fall. So, he let them. “That’s not why I’m—sorry, Momo. What kind of wedding is this? Are we talkin’ black tie, or—?”

Morgan’s expression never changed. The concern she had for him filled his heart, but it only made the sting beneath his eyes worsen. “Why’re you crying? You’re getting married. You should be happy.”

“I am happy,” Tony said. “I’m always happy. How dare you accuse me of not being happy?”

As she giggled, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She always wore a smile on her face. She always showed her heart and her innocence proudly, and Tony _was_ happy. He couldn’t deny that one day, her curiosity would dig up the past and he would have to tell her everything. He signed onto that contract from day one.

“Wanna know something, Momo?” he asked her quietly, brushing back a few strands of her hair so he could look at her.

She nodded.

“Mister Spidey belonged to a good friend of mine,” Tony continued. He pointed at the small drone in her hands. “You remember that kid I was telling you about a while ago? Pete?”

Morgan nodded once again, her smile growing. “Silly Pete.”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Tony cracked a smile. A sad smile or a happy smile; he couldn’t tell the difference. “This was his. Not sure how the hell you got your hands on it, so if you break it, you buy it.”

“It’s cool,” she said, setting it in his hand. “Shiny.”

“And get this,” he said, “when it’s activated, it _flies.”_

Morgan’s eyes lit up after that, and a knot formed in Tony’s stomach. This wasn’t meant to be his show-and-tell—it was supposed to be Peter’s. The thought of him and Morgan bonding over Spider-Man was enough to bring the tears right back.

“Show me, show me!” she cried and bounced on her heels.

“I think—” Tony glanced over his shoulder and down the hall. The scent and sounds of chicken frying on a pan filled his senses. “—your mommy would not be very happy about that. What do you say we go wash up and harass her for a bit before dinner? Then afterward we can fly Mister Spidey around all ya want.”

“Harassing is mean.”

He chuckled, standing slowly before taking her hand in his. “Yeah, it is. Come along, Madam. Peter’s gonna be disappointed if you don’t eat all of your food.”

“If he’s your kid too,” Morgan said, “is he my brother?”

Tony’s heart sank in his chest. With a smile, he told her, “that, Little Miss, is up to you. He’d be lucky to have you as a little sister. You two would get along too well—you’re both a pain in my ass.”

“ _Ass_.”

“Shit, I really gotta watch my mouth ‘round you, don’t I?”

Morgan giggled and held herself close to his leg. “Ass.”

“Don’t tell mommy or I’ll eat your fruit snacks.”

**IV.**

_“Save those little lies, darlin’ don’t explain…”_

Morgan’s mittened hand tightened around her father’s as he sang softly. A world of dark oranges and brown hues surrounded them on their walk through the park. There wasn’t another soul in sight, even when the afternoon faded into evening, and it was something Tony had never imagined. Cracked sidewalks, abandoned fountains, and words painted on walls. The boathouse sat like a shell on the lake.

_“I recall Central Park in fall—how you tore you dress, what a mess… my heart says ‘Danke Schoen’…”_

“You’re ruining it, daddy,” Morgan said, pulling on his hand. She had a scarf wrapped up to her lips, hair matted down under a white knit hat while any exposed skin turned pink from the cold.

“Ruining it?” he asked. “What am I ruining? If anything, I’m just making it better.”

“The birds,” she told him. “You’re ruining their song.”

Tony huffed. His daughter was a piece of work—she took after him—but he smiled nevertheless. “They’re ruining _my_ song.”

“They were here first.”

“Okay, touché.”

They carried on down the paths quietly, listening for the city birds that stuck around for the cold weather while missing the sunshine. No matter the season, there was nothing beautiful about Central Park anymore. The world—the new one—had neglected it. Tony wished he could show his daughter the New York City he knew. His last moments spent in that version had been on an asthma-triggering run with his fianceé. Now he fought for the right words to say, not knowing how to tell Morgan about something she would never understand.

She points out every spot of graffiti she sees, from park benches to trash cans to the walls of Bethesda Terrace. The weather had worn down pavilions. Baseball fields were left to the seasons as nature reclaimed a once-loved tourist home. The romantic aspect of Central Park had died with half of the universe, leaving a broken carapace of trees behind. It seemed as though the sky was never blue these days.

“I like this one,” Morgan said with her finger pointed toward an outline of an angel’s wings in white paint. “Reminds me of mommy.”

Tony cracked a smile at that. In dark times, she always made his heart feel warm. “Sure does, doesn’t it? She really is an angel.”

Morgan’s attention span was never in one place for too long. She loved the world and all things in it. She loved exploring nature more than she loved her favorite foods. With Tony’s hand in hers, she led them down paths of leaves and twigs, under and over bridges until his knees creaked with each step. She had pointed at twenty individual pieces of graffiti art ever since.

“That’s like Pete’s!” she squealed, tugging on Tony’s jacket with her other hand outstretched toward more graffiti. The bridge they were beneath shielded them from the falling snow.

Tony’s content smile turned into a heart-dropping frown. When his eyes met the art of a fallen hero, his throat closed in on itself. Someone had spray-painted Spider-Man on the wall. It wasn’t a new sight to see—New York grieved Peter in a great abundance, and graffiti followed Tony wherever he went. But Morgan knew about Peter now. She didn’t know about Spider-Man.

Moments like these reminded Tony of the impact Peter had on the city. Over time, he had forgotten. And when Spider-Man had been around, Tony was too caught up to notice.

Morgan ran up to the fading art and pressed a finger onto the spider symbol on its chest. “Mis’er Spidey,” she said.

Tony let out a sigh. He wanted to say so many things. He wanted to sit her down and tell her every story that he could think of from memory. He feared, if he waited too long, then he would forget them all. He would forget about Spider-Man. About Peter. The thought made Tony’s stomach turn inside out.

“Well, Momo,” Tony began, scratching at his chin to keep his worries at bay, “that _is_ Mister Spidey. Remember how I told you that Mister Spidey belonged to Pete?”

A great big grin spread across her cheeks as he nodded. The art had her in a trance.

“That’s because this is Peter,” Tony said. “He was a superhero just like Iron Man.”

“Just like you?”

 _Better_ , he wanted to say. He nodded instead. “Just like me. And, _just like me_ , he had an alter-ego. Kinda. Peter was a plain, boring kid during the day. But, at night, he was Spider-Man. When he wasn’t fighting crime, he was just some punk-ass high schooler.”

“ _Ass_ ,” Morgan giggled out. She loved hearing about Peter. She loved hearing about the boy she considered her long lost brother. The more she found out about him, the more she brought him up in their daily conversations.

“Shh, I didn’t say that.”

“I wanna be Spider-Man,” she said as they carried on down the path.

Tony took one last glance over his shoulder at the graffiti art. “He was a pretty cool kid, Momo,” he said, resting a hand on the back of her head, “you would’ve loved him. But _God,_ no, you wouldn’t wanna be Spider-Man. Saving lives. Exploring the city. Getting all of that praise. You’d hate it. It’s like your worst nightmare.”

She laughed and placed her hand back in his. “I’d love it! I wanna be Spider-Man. I wanna be a hero like you.”

_I just wanted to be like you._

Tony smiled through the steady ache in his chest. “You already saved my life, Maguna,” he said, “and that makes you a hero to me.”

**V.**

Morgan was an unstoppable force of energy. The week prior to her birthday, she had run miles around the house, screaming out gift ideas and begging her parents for _Toy Story_ party favors. Her Jessie hat flew off and hit him in the face more times than he could count, but he didn’t mind. The excitement she felt was mutual. He wasn’t one to spoil his child nonstop, but on her birthday, she deserved all of the love and happiness she could get. If she wanted _Toy Story_ party favors, then she would get them.

His excitement turned into nerves when she started talking about who she wanted at her birthday party. Friends from playdates, the girl she met at a Hannaford Supermarket, Gerald the Alpaca, and Peter Parker. Morgan desperately wanted to meet Peter Parker.

Tony couldn’t blame her. She talked about him nearly every day, wondering aloud about his favorite color or if he liked ketchup with his chicken nuggets too. As a matter of fact, he did. But Morgan spoke about Peter as if they had been friends forever, and Tony didn’t have the strength to tell her the sad reality. She would never meet Peter Parker. So, he let the questions come.

 _“When can I meet Pete? Did you invite him to my birthday party? Can he come? Am I gonna meet him? Is he excited to meet me?”_ and so on.

Pepper saw right through Tony’s tight smiles. She saw through each lie he fed his daughter. Pepper could see through everything.

Before dinner, while Morgan was upstairs and Tony was busy stirring a pot of pasta, Pepper said his name in a voice so low and familiar, so heartbreaking, that he could feel his heart stop at the sound.

“You can’t avoid this,” she said to him, and despite the lack of context, he knew exactly what she was talking about. “You’ve shared Peter with her, Tony. You need to tell her why he’s not here.”

“I know,” he said, clenching his jaw tight. Once his eyes fell on the photo above the sink, he couldn’t look away. “It’s—it’s just too hard.”

Pepper set a hand on his shoulder and kissed it. She didn’t need to say anything else. She didn’t need to go on a tangent about why he needed to follow her advice for their daughter’s sake. He already knew she was right, but he still feared the inevitable. Tony knew how to cope with his problems. Opening up about them was another story.

That night, once Morgan was settled in bed after dinner and a bath, Tony sat down at the edge of her bed with his hands together on his lap. He held back the tremble in his fingers and thought about the right words to say. She would ask questions—he knew that—and he was prepared to answer every single one of them if he could. But what he was most afraid of was resurfacing the pain of old memories.

“Hey, Momo, I have to tell you a few things, okay?” he told her softly, tucking her comforter under her chin with a sad smile.

She nodded against her pillow and mumbled out, “okay.”

Tony, after a long, deep breath, didn’t know where to begin. “I have to tell you why Peter isn’t here,” he said. “Why he won’t make it to your birthday party.”

His voice wavered for a moment. He could be strong for her.

Morgan’s eyebrows drew inward, lips falling into a frown before she brought her blanket up to her nose. “He can’t come?”

Tony shook his head. “No, sweetheart, he can’t. Um—” He squeezed his eyes tightly together with a wince. He was going to be okay. “A few years ago—before you were born—something happened. There used to be a lot more people in this world, Momo. Double the amount. Central Park thrived with sappy couples and tourists with their hot, cheesy pretzels. And there was Spider-Man, fighting crime in the night and acing pop quizzes during the daytime. But then those people… they—well, they _vanished_.”

Morgan’s eyes widened. She pulled the blanket back down, exposing the worsening horror on her face as he carried on.

“Peter used to be here,” he said, “like a hero. Sometimes like a parasite, if I’m honest. Some people would argue they’re no different. The last day I saw Peter, I was right there by his side when it all happened. We were trying to save everyone, you see. This big ugly purple guy—”

She gasped. “The flying purple people eater?”

Tony laughed through the burning in his cheeks. “That’s the one. He was the bad guy we were fighting. And when we lost to him, everyone else lost, too.”

“They vanished?”

“They vanished,” he said, sniffing. “And Peter did, too.”

A tear slipped down Morgan’s cheek at the sound of those words. Tony’s tears were soon to follow.

“But,” Tony continued, patting Morgan on the leg through the comforter, “he wasn’t alone. He had—he had someone to hold him as he left us. Y’know, he loved superheroes almost as much as he loved being one. _Avengers_ are what we called ourselves. He was too modest to admit that he idolized us before he became one of us. Yeah. He had a lot of love to give. Just wish he was here to share it with you.”

Morgan’s bottom lip trembled, and the sight broke Tony’s heart. As he reached up to wipe her tears, his own began to fall. So, she pressed her hand to his cheek and wiped his tears away, too.

Tony smiled weakly. “I know you wanted to meet him, Momo. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll never meet him?” she asked.

His smile fell. How could he answer a question like that?

She didn’t need an answer as she threw herself forward into his arms, refusing to hold back her sobs while he held her close. “I wanted—” She hiccuped. “I wanted t’meet my brother.”

Tony’s eyes softened. The tension in his expression released slowly. “He would’ve loved to meet you. But he’s still around if you look hard enough. Mister Spidey? Peter’s right there. And he’s gonna keep you safe.”

“Why’d he have to go, daddy?” she asked once her cries calmed.

“I don’t know, baby,” he said sadly. “Sometimes people have to go even when we don’t want them to. Sometimes people leave, and it hurts, but you know what? Their legacy will always remain.”

**+1**

Peter knew Pepper’s home better than his new place. He had fallen in love with the wood-burning stove, the greenhouse, and the alpacas. He had fallen in love with the old workshop that Tony left behind. And what Peter loved most of all was the four-year-old trotting around the yard in a plastic Iron Man mask—or a real Iron Man mask, depending on the day.

She cried when they met. He didn’t know why until Pepper told him. Morgan had known about Peter all along—about Spider-Man, about how he died and why he couldn’t attend her birthday party, which he was heartbroken over. So, Peter cried a little, too. He cried because everything she knew about him was because of Tony.

After that, Peter couldn’t imagine his world without Morgan. She had become a part of him.

“I can’t get Morgan to come down from her room,” Pepper told him one afternoon.

His arrival always cued the pattering of small feet on steps until two arms threw themselves around his legs. But there was silence when Peter entered. Silence and Pepper’s warm hugs and famous hot chocolate.

“Is she stuck under her bed again?” Peter asked. He set his backpack and Spider-Man belongings on a chair beside the counter. “Or is that millipede back?”

Pepper shrugged, smiling sadly. “Neither, unfortunately.” She sat a box of chocolate milk in front of him. “If you can coax her out with this, you’re my hero. I’m helpless.”

“I’ll do my best, Miss Potts.

“For the hundredth time, Peter—it’s Pepper.”

Morgan wasn’t under her bed when Peter stepped into her room. She wasn’t in her bed either. She sat on the floor on the other side of the room, a sea of toys scattered around her while she ignored his sudden presence.

“Hey, Momo,” Peter said, sitting down beside her carefully. “What’re we playing today?”

“Not playin’,” she told him. She sniffed and continued to avoid looking at him. “Too sad.”

“Too sad? Why’re you sad?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she held up an Iron Man action figure—the same action figure Peter had made for Tony many years back. It was a nerdy gift, but he knew it would be treasured nevertheless. And it was clear that it was.

“Iron Man and Thor never had their wedding,” she said after a moment. The Thor action figure sat in its depressed state across the floor. “My—my daddy was gonna help me with it.”

“Oh, Morgan,” Peter mumbled, frowning. “I’m really sorry. Can I help with it?”

She nodded slowly, but then she said, “I miss him.”

Morgan didn’t speak up about her father a lot unless it was about happy memories. She was young and naïve to the gruesome side of life. Death didn’t haunt her as it did for Peter. She would miss her dad in theory, but her memories would soon fade. The thought made Peter feel sick. Yet right now, she really did miss him.

“No one talks about him anymore,” she said, sudden cries wracking through her. “Everyone says he won’t come back. But you came back. You left and came back. Why won’t he come back?”

Peter didn’t know what else to do other than hold her. She had become the sister he never had, and he knew what it was like to not have a father. But he hoped, down deep, that she still wanted him to be her brother.

“Your dad was a hero,” Peter said as strong as he could to keep the tears from falling. “But you knew that, I’m sure.”

She nodded, mumbling out, “Iron Man,” against his shirt. “Iron Man was a hero. Like Spider-Man.”

“Sure, like Spider-Man,” Peter said with a light laugh. “Just better.”

“I like Spider-Man.”

“Thanks, Momo,” he replied. “He likes you, too. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that when I was only a few years older than you, all I wanted was to be a hero just like Iron Man. I always knew that he would mean a lot to me. And when I was just eight-years-old, your dad saved my life.”

Morgan twisted around to face Peter with a raised brow. “He did?”

Peter nodded and smiled. “There were these massive robots—looked just like Iron Man but scary and mean—and they were trying to kill us,” he explained in his best storyteller voice. “People were running and screaming everywhere. Explosions were going off, and because of that, I got separated from my aunt and uncle in the crowds. But since I had on my Iron Man helmet and gauntlets, I thought I was invincible. I wasn’t scared one bit. When a big robot landed right in front of me, you know what I did?”

Morgan’s eyes lit up in anticipation.

“I raised my arm, preparing to shoot down that big scary robot, and then _boom!”_ he exclaimed, causing her to jump. “The robot exploded into thousands of pieces. And when I turned around, you know who was there? Iron Man. He told me _great work_ and flew away to defeat the rest of the robots, but I never forgot about it. Actually, for the longest time, I thought that I had been the one to blow up that robot. Once I was old enough, I realized that Iron Man had been the one to save me all along. And then I became Spider-Man, and suddenly your dad was doing a lot of saving for me. He was always there to keep me safe. Just like he’ll be there to keep you safe no matter what.”

“But how can he keep me safe if he’s not here?” Morgan asked, pouting once again.

“He’s always here,” Peter told her as he held up the action figure. “See? He’s right here. He’ll always be here. He’ll always make you feel safe.”

Morgan wrapped her arms around Peter again, but she didn’t cry this time. “You make me feel safe, Petey. You and Mis’er Spidey.”

“Mister Spidey?”

She dove down to the floor where all of the strewn toys sat. When she came back up, she handed him the familiar spider insignia from his suit. A Droney prototype—or ‘Mister Spidey’ as she called it.

“He flies,” she said, tapping on the metal. “Makes me feel safe.”

Peter smiled. He couldn’t help the sudden happiness he felt. He made her feel safe. Spider-Man made her feel safe, too. He would never be “the next Iron Man” but he didn’t need to be. As long as Spider-Man made others feel safe, he was exactly like Iron Man in every way. 


End file.
